'I just wanted to fit in and feel valued': Bancroft explains his role in ball tampering

Cameron Bancroft has detailed how he was approached by then vice-captain David Warner to use sandpaper to alter the condition of the match ball in Cape Town, at which point he “didn’t know any better” than to take part in the cheating.

New to the Australian side, Bancroft was broadcast around the world hiding sandpaper down his pants. The incident earlier this year sparked a major crisis in Australian cricket which led to a series of cultural reviews and the suspensions of captain Steve Smith, Warner and Bancroft.

Crackdown: Cameron Bancroft hiding the now infamous sandpaper.

Speaking to Adam Gilchrist in an interview aired on Fox Sports during the lunch break on day one of the Boxing Day Test, Bancroft said he felt pressured into cheating out of a desire to be accepted by the playing group.

“Dave [Warner] suggested to me to carry the action out on the ball given the situation we were in in the game and I didn’t know any better,” Bancroft said.

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“I didn’t know any better because I just wanted to fit in and feel valued, really — as simple as that.

“The decision was based around my values, what I valued at the time and I valued fitting in … you hope that fitting in earns you respect and with that, I guess, there came a pretty big cost for the mistake.”

Bancroft said he didn't feel he could turn down the suggestion, fearful of not being seen as a committed team member.

Reflecting on the intensity of Test cricket compared to the Sheffield Shield, Bancroft said the mindset in Cape Town was about “identifying those key moments and identifying what you can control and can’t control".

“Using sandpaper on a cricket ball is certainly out of the spirit of the game, but I guess a part of that is you’re trying to take control of a particular part of a game.”

Bancroft also cited the conditions on day three of the Test - overcast and relatively damp - as a “big part” of the genesis for the ball-tampering scheme being hatched.

Bancroft said he would have felt the same sense of guilt had he not taken part in the scheme and turned down Warner’s overtures: “I would have gone to bed and felt like I’d let everybody down… let the team down and hurt our chances to win the game of cricket.”

Bancroft, confirming the findings of Cricket Australia’s investigation into the incident, pinpointed Warner for the hatching of the plan.

“Definitely I was asked to do it (by Warner), I guess I just didn't know how to be true to myself in that moment, so I didn’t actually know any better - I had no prior experience to kind of go ‘of course, of course, the act of using sandpaper on a cricket ball is wrong’.

“I’m not a victim - I had a choice and I made a massive mistake,” he said.

The competing forces, Bancroft said, to at once ingratiate himself with his teammates as well as hold himself to a robust ethical standard, “don’t fit together”.

Bancroft was able to find positives in his hiatus, likening the period to one where a cricketer is fighting for form and battling internal demons.

“There’s some faith, or hope, that around the corner there will be something positive,” he said.

Speaking on SEN, former Test batsman Simon Katich said he could “see how that (incident) would have been cultivated in a team environment … decision-making went out the window.”

Warner has previously apologised for his part in the scandal. He is set to be available to return to the national side in time for the World Cup in May 2019.

Bancroft’s ban ends on 29 December, at which point he is expected to take to the field for the Perth Scorchers in the Big Bash League.